


Fire

by ivyshort



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 16:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21340945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyshort/pseuds/ivyshort
Summary: She wasn't sure what her plan for the old manor house had been when she'd packed a suitcase and left when she was 16. But at least the old house could give her some perspective.Light Royai
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I read a really wonderful fic recently called Hallowed Ground by Catglue where Riza went back to her father's house. I got to thinking about that after finishing and went "Hey, Grumman is her grandfather. Maybe he came along too."
> 
> Songs I drew inspiration from while writing: Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face, and Burned Out by Dodie.

She wasn’t sure what her plan for the old manor house had been when she had packed her suitcase and locked the front door when she was 16. If the universe had been kind, maybe it would have been polite enough to crumble quietly into dust and she never would have needed to step foot back in this miserable, cold town with all its leaden memories. Even the house burning down would have been an ironic blessing.

And yet, here she was, feeling smaller now at 22 than she ever did at 16, dwarfed by the crumbling stone and wandering ivy.

“It’s held up surprisingly well, don’t you think?” her grandfather mused, droplets of rain pooling and dripping off the brim of his cap. He took the moment to stroke his moustache thoughtfully, as if there was more to ponder about the state of the house than he thought when he made the comment.

Riza didn’t answer, but braved a few steps forward to the old wrought iron gate. She wiped her face, thankful for the rain. She wasn’t sure how much of the water on her face was tears and how much was just rain. A small blessing.

“Thank you for coming, Grandfather. You didn’t need to take a whole week of leave for me. I can handle this.”

She’d handled worse on her own, after all, much younger than she was now. She would push open the gate soon and she’d handle it again. She’d handled Ishval. She could handle a few old books and some dusty furniture.

“Nonsense, my dear. That’s what a grandfather is for, after all,” he replied gently. A clap of thunder echoed miles away, “I may take a few minutes to go visit your mother before we get started. Would you care to join me?”

She shook her head, hand resting on the gate, trying to calm the tremors that shook the hinges.

“Then again,” he continued, resting his hand over hers and giving it a gentle squeeze, “Best not to dally on a good day’s work, hm?”

He pushed, swinging the gate open with an offending screech.

“I can handle it,” she whispered, staring at the dirt path in front of her. Grumman took the first step forward, but stopped when he heard her voice. He smiled, turning to meet her eyes.

“I have no doubt, my dear. But accepting help doesn’t mean you can’t, no more than vulnerability means you are weak,” he said, gray eyes gentle and full of sorrow.

Her grip tightened on the old suitcase, turning her knuckles white, “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

A hand rested gently on her shoulder.

“It is infinitely easier to teach a green recruit how to handle a rifle properly than it is to convince the practiced farmhand who’s spent his entire life taking potshots at rats in the barn every day that he needs to change his habits. A lifetime of difficulty is not solved by a few thoughtful sayings.”

She wiped her face again and took a deep breath before nodding and fishing the key for the front door out of her pocket.

“Now, where would you like me to start?” he asked as they crossed the short distance to the porch, his hand still on her shoulder.

“Could… Could you start in the kitchen? Most of it is probably rusted out, but what’s still useful I’ll take with me when we leave.”

She turned the key in the lock with numb fingers, pushing the door open herself this time, “I think I’ll go upstairs first. There’s a few things in my room I’d like to take with me.”

“Excellent,” Grumman replied, giving her a kiss on the forehead and shaking out his hat and coat. Once they were hung, he lit one of the old oil lamps and ventured down the hall to the left.

She took a moment to stand on the threshold before hanging up her own soaked coat on the tarnished hook by the door that had commanded her father’s overcoat for so many years.

The remnants of that overcoat lay crumpled on the ground beheath it, moth-eaten and covered in dust. She set her suitcase next to it, but didn’t move it off the floor.

Riza fought the urge to take off her shoes as well, all too aware of how loud her footsteps were as she walked down the hallway. Her father’s study door stared her down at the end of the hallway, door hanging awkwardly on it hinges, hanging open an uncomfortable few inches. That wouldn’t do. Her father would never tolerate his study with an open door.

She closed it softly and turned up the stairs. That room would have to wait. Maybe she’d face it later this week. Maybe she’d call in one last favor and come back next month with Roy, and he could sort through the books and donate the innocent ones to the university’s alchemy program. Roy would do it. He’d offered her anything, and she knew he followed through on his promises.

Maybe he could just burn the whole thing to ashes. Do them both a favor. Her back ached.

As she climbed the stairs, she wondered briefly if any of Roy’s old work was tucked away in that study, or hidden in his old room in the cracks and crevices in the walls. She’d hid herself in bed for several days after Roy had left, feigning illness if her father had ever bothered to check on her (he hadn’t). She’d stayed as quiet as possible, hidden under the duvet, as he’d ranted and raved, tearing paper and setting things ablaze. Roy was supposed to be her father’s magnum opus, human proof of what he could accomplish when he bothered to care. He was supposed to be the keeper of flame alchemy outright.

All that time and effort, put to ashes. He’d had too much ambition for her father’s tastes. He couldn’t be cowed and ordered around like she could be.

Her back stung, new skin rubbing against fresh bandages as she pushed open the door to her old room.

It was the same as she’d left it, faded burgundy and peeling wallpaper. The same ink stain on the rug. The room had been a kind one once, when her mother had made her curtains for her 4th birthday and a bed cover to match. Too many years of being her only refuge had made it gray and threadbare.

She opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand and fished out the false bottom.

The whole house could burn down and she’d only mourn these few precious photos.

The first, the oldest, was from his first day as her father’s apprentice. When she was 7, Roy Mustang had seemed larger than life, tall enough to reach the high shelves in the kitchen and strong enough to open all the jars she couldn’t. He’d seemed almost grown back then, knowing all the arithmetic she didn’t and having already read every book she’d ever heard of. Even now, his eyes shone through the old photograph with every ounce of determination and optimism she remembered from so long ago.

He’d lost the optimism during Ishval. Those eyes had dulled to only the grimmest of determination. Empty and broken. Her eyes had never had that far to fall.

But she’d seen it again. As he’d tended to the burns on her back with hands so gentle she could have mistaken them for the wind, the eyes she knew so well had come back with a fire behind them. Optimism, sure, she had seen that again. But more than anything, in that dark apartment in East City, she had seen life in his eyes. Purpose.

There was a spot on his staff for her, he’d told her. There was no one he trusted more than her, the girl who had hidden all of his secrets for years. When he decided to join the military, she’d been the only one he told, the only one to know why he took all his notes and books with him when he’d gone home for Christmas. She’d even smuggled out a few of her father’s books for him so he could keep studying alchemy. They’d sat up, late at night, him a strong young man of 18 drawing out transmutation circles and her, gangly and all of 14 struggling with her algebra, and he’d talked about his dream. Riza had never considered life beyond her tiny hometown before those nights, never considered a life for herself outside the Hawkeye manor. She’d been so eager to join him in that dream.

History had repeated itself in that apartment in East City, and he had spent the night tending her burns talking about his new dream. He’d stared down the Fuhrer of Amestris, but she wasn’t sure yet if she trusted him not to lead her into a worse battlefield than the one they both just left. Maybe city boys from Central had dreams, and small town girls in crumbling manor houses just had to pick up the pieces.

Riza sighed, tucking the first photo into her jacket pocket.

The other was from not long before he left, from a village wedding at the height of summer that her father hadn’t wanted either of them to attend. She’d sewn herself a new dress for the occasion, navy blue and tiny white flowers, with a skirt fuller than the miserable state of her father’s finances should have allowed. There had even been enough leftover fabric to sew Roy a matching vest. It wasn’t certain what he wore with more pride, the vest or her on his arm. She’d nursed a childish crush on him the entire last year of his apprenticeship, flushing red at every compliment. He’d been kind enough never to tease her for it.

It had been a wonderful evening, dance after dance. He’d politely refused every time any of the other girls tried to drag him on to the dance floor, even turning away Sophia Hammond, the girl he’d dated two years before and who was widely considered the prettiest girl in the town. No, he’d only danced with her.

She tucked it into her jacket pocket as well, cheeks more pink than she cared to admit to herself, and walked over to her old wardrobe.

It still smelled like mothballs and smoke, but the clothes were intact, at least. Her good winter coat went on the bed. So did a few of her old skirts, some sweaters, and a blouse of her mother’s that she’d tucked away when she’d found it in the attic one day. It had been spring when she’d left the house last, and she hadn’t thought about bringing her warm clothes with her in that little suitcase. Ishval hadn’t begged for them either.

Her old, sturdy work boots went by the bed as well. So did the good shoes she’d worn at her father’s funeral. A shoebox with a few of her mother’s trinkets and some of the jewelry she’d managed to scavenge from her mother’s jewelry box before it disappeared one day.

The blue dress with the white flowers was the last thing left. She knew it wasn’t going to fit - she’d grown up a lot since then, no longer the stick thin 14 year old she was when Roy Mustang had kissed her on the cheek at the end of that wonderful night on the walk back to the house. The neckline, too, was too low. She’d never be able to keep her back covered wearing it.

She put the dress on the bed anyways. She needed it.

Her fingers traced the pattern absentmindedly. If only the world could be that simple again. To believe in the goodness of alchemy. In love. In a good world, where a boy took a girl to a wedding and danced with her. Maybe in that world, her father never would have covered her back in salamander tongue and Roy wouldn’t of had to burn it away. There, maybe, she would have kissed Roy Mustang on the walk back to the house after that wedding and maybe he would have kissed back.

Riza’s eyes strayed to the room across the hall. They’d never talked about how they felt about each other, not that night when she was 14 and not any of the many, long nights they sat next to each other at the campfire in Ishval. She knew he hadn’t dated anyone since he’d broken up with Sophia Hammond ten years ago.

There were plenty of girls he talked about in Ishval, and all the other soldiers had whispered to each other about the Flame Alchemist being a womanizer and a player. But she knew better - all those women he’d talked about were his sisters, back in Central. She’d met most of them, when her father had allowed her to accompany Roy home one summer to collect payment from his aunt. They’d showered her in makeup and dresses, tossing her one of their old suitcases and filling it to bursting. One of them, a girl around Roy’s age named Madeline, had even sat with her and talked through all the different types of makeup they were sending her home with and how to apply each of them. Riza remembered staring at her in the mirror of the armoire, watching her pin back her long, curly blonde hair into an intricate updo and wet the mascara cake ever so lightly with a thin brush to swipe it across her eyelid in a single, fluid stroke. No one in her town wore makeup like that, bold, colorful, and unapologetic.

Even now, almost a decade later, she was still working through the mountain of makeup given to her by Roy’s sisters.

She pushed open the door to his old room, holding back a shiver that ran up her spine. Ever since Roy had left, she’d left his room alone, an empty shrine to the friend that had left her alone.

The room itself had escaped her father’s wrath mostly unscathed, but there were scorch marks on the wall behind the bed, slashing the old wallpaper back to the brick of the house several layers deep.

Most of the drawers were empty, as was the wardrobe, but his nightstand had the same false bottom as hers - small wonder, as he’d been the one to put the false bottom in hers.

There wasn’t much, just a few old letters from his aunt and the acceptance letter to the military academy. Her heart dropped. Logically, she knew Roy hadn’t opened since he was 18. There wouldn’t be any deep secrets, no bearing of his soul anywhere in this room. No easy answers to her questions.

She took out the contents anyway, folding them gently and putting them in her jacket pocket to join the photos. Maybe she’d see Roy again and pass them on. She was sure he’d want them.

A knock at the door startled her out of her fantasies, and Grumman poked his head into the room.

“It’s about supper time, my dear, and I’m afraid I’m quarantining that kitchen for the rest of its miserable existence. Care to join me on a walk into town?”

“Yes, of course, Grandfather,” she said, closing the wardrobe door, “I’m just about done in here, I think.”

“Ah, I remember that wallpaper,” he said, his eyes caught on the far wall, “Your mother wrote to me. She was very specific about what she wanted, I had to go to three different places in Central before I finally found it.”

“It was very pretty. I remember when she put it up,” she replied, smiling. She’d followed her mother like a shadow that day in rapt anticipation, running her fingers along the wet paper, tracing the patterns as it dried.

“I’m glad it went to good use.”

There was a wistful, faraway look in his eyes that Riza remembered her father having occasionally, when she caught him early in the morning, looking at the sunrise.

“Shall we?” she murmured, touching his elbow gently.

He looked at her, almost startled, “Yes, yes, of course.”

Neither of them spoke again until they were halfway to town, walking into the sunset with their hands in their pockets, lost in deep thought. The rain had let up and the clouds had parted, leaving the sky a brilliant rush of red and gold. The sun was just a giant ball of flames, but it took its duty in the heavens seriously. Fire had been such a bane in her life. A destroyer.

But a fire had crackled merrily in the hearth every night she and Roy had studied together, wrapped in blankets to ward off the chill. Fire lit her way along the streets at night, and kept her company long after the sun had set. Fire hung in the sky every day, and humanity wouldn’t exist without it.

Fire had set her free.

“Have you given any thought to what you’ll do next, Riza? Your enlistment ends next month, and you haven’t talked about it at all.”

She shook her head, “I haven’t decided yet.”

Grumman pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, giving her a tiny _mhm_ in response.

“Father made sure I finished school, but I’m afraid I was never very good at any of it, so I’m not sure what I’d do if I left the military,” she said, choking out a mirthless chuckle, “And I confess, I’m not all that thrilled by the idea of being someone’s housekeeper again.”

“No dashing young men begging for your hand? I’m surprised,” he replied, smiling.

Black eyes flashed into her mind. Neither of them deserved that happiness anymore, whether he felt the same or not.

“No,” she said softly, “I can’t imagine that’ll ever happen now.”

“Now, don’t go saying things like that,” he said, patting her on the shoulder, “There’s a rather handsome young man I just started mentoring in East City. He’s very sharp. I think you’d be quite fond of him, if you’d like me to introduce you two.”

“Grandfather, that’s against the fraternization policy,” she scolded, “You know that.”

He smiled, giving her a side eye, “So I suppose that means you’ll re-enlist, then?”

Riza shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself, “I don’t think I deserve simple happiness after I’ve robbed so many people of their ability to do that very thing, but I can’t see myself staying in uniform and being complicit in something like that ever again.”

Grumman nodded, letting her words hang in the air and giving himself time to think before replying.

“War is not something anyone truly understands before they live it. If you are not careful, it festers within you long after the guns are laid to rest, like an infected wound.”

“What do other people do, Grandfather? How can they wash their hands and move on so easily?” she whispered, smelling gunpowder on the air.

“The truth is a surprisingly subjective thing,” he said, checking the time on his pocketwatch as they crested the hill by the village and turned into the graveyard, “Some people can convince themselves they made the choices that had to be made and be content with them. Some lose themselves to guilt and anguish, drinking themselves into a stupor.”

He looked over at her as they pushed open the cemetery gate, “And some find a goal in that misery that keeps their feet moving forward. A purpose to their being that is larger than themselves.”

Riza met her grandfather’s eyes, dark and unreadable. He looked away, treading the familiar path to her mother’s grave.

_“I can’t atone for what I’ve done. But I can lead this country into a brighter future. A beautiful future. I’d like you to come with me.”_

“How do you find that goal?” she asked as Grumman laid a bouquet onto her mother’s grave.

“Now that, at least, is a simple question,” he said, kneeling in front of his daughter’s grave, “If it doesn’t come from within you, you find someone for who it does. And you help them.”

“And...and if you’re not sure the person with the goal will succeed?”

His eyes flashed, “Then you don’t waste your time on them.”

“Is it really that simple?”

Her grandfather pushed himself up from the ground with an agonizing groan.

“It can be,” he replied, putting his hands in his pockets and pulling out his old, hand carved pipe, “If you let it.”

“How do you tell?” she whispered, “How do you know the person with the goal is worthwhile?”

Grumman took a long draw on his pipe and breathed out slowly, clouds of smoke swirling into the air and up into the heavens.

“Their eyes,” he answered, “Words can be scripted, body language practiced, and allies forged, but a man’s eyes will always tell you the truth.

Riza’s breath caught in her throat. Her back ached.

He looked over at her, barely tilting his head, and smiled.

“And I can see in yours that you’ve made your decision.”

***

“What changed your mind?” Roy asked her months later, as they walked down a side street in East City long after dark.

“Pardon?” Riza asked, feigning innocence.

“You’d decided to leave the military,” he said, hands in his pockets, “I could tell you had, when… when I destroyed your father’s notes.”

She nodded, straightening her uniform, “I had.”

“But you re-enlisted.”

“I found a purpose to staying in the military when I went back to my father’s house,” she said, looking over at him, his face lit by the flickering streetlights, “A blue dress, with white flowers.”

He smiled softly, slowing his pace.

“How curious,” he said, “I have a vest just like that.”

She could have sworn his cheeks were pink, but it was cold enough outside that she brushed it off as just the winter weather. They kept walking.

**Author's Note:**

> I realized last week that I only stopped writing fanfic when I got too busy with school. Well, now that I'm graduated and gainfully employed 40 hours a week, I finally have a little time to revisit the hobbies that I had to drop while trying to get through college! I can't say how much I'll write or how much will end up online but it felt good to write without the guilt of not being productive. I like being an adult.


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